Grebes Galore at Teddington...
Took a stroll along the river at Teddington Lock this morning to try and catch up with a Black-necked Grebe that has been seen there the last few days.
After a while of searching around the Lock, sure enough, in the river, staring straight at us, was the Black-necked Grebe! At first it was quite far out, but soon dived and resurfaced relitively close...
100th Post...
It's the blog's 100th post (yay!) and I don't really have anything spectacular to celebrate it with. A short afternoon visit to Pen Ponds in Richmond Park earlier today was the first time I've been out photographing this February.
There is usually a large variety of wildfowl present on the two lakes, with Wigeon, Pochard, Teal, Gadwall and Shovelers wintering in healthy numbers, however, today there were only a few Shovelers. Most of them were way out in the middle of the lake, but two birds were slightly more obliging, and although they weren't coming for bread (luckily!) and were quite shy, I managed to sneak up on them and get a few shots...
The Moon...
Goosander Glory at Painshill...
Goosander is a good record for Surrey, so after hearing about Tricia's great find of 5 Goosander at Painshill Park in Cobham (just down the road) I decided to try my luck and see if I could find, and photograph, the 4 males and 1 female that were found the other day.
On entry, I scanned the trees for Lesser Redpoll, and although there were Goldfinch and Siskin about, there didn't seem to be any Redpoll.
The Goosanders, however, were present, but they were very shy and timid, and would fly to the other side of the lake as soon as I got close. After about half an hour of crouching patiently with the tripod, they finally plucked up the courage to make their way back to my side of the lake, although they still stayed far out in the middle, allowing me to get a group shot of the stars...
Hide Photography...
I recently bought a load of camouflage gear from WildlifeWatching Supplies including a sort of camouflage coloured blanket that you throw over yourself... basically, a cheap version of a hide. As I haven't been bothered to make it past the back garden these last few days, I decided to set up the camera equipment in the garden, and throw the camouflage coloured blanket thing over me.
The birds didn't seem too bothered with me, but neither did they seem too bothered to sit on the perch that I had focused on, just above the bird feeder. In the end, only a Great tit came into the viewfinder... I guess it's not a bad first attempt.
Hardcore Moth...
A few days we were only just recovering from the recent snowfall, and temperatures couldn't have been above freezing. However, one species of moth has managed to survive the cold spell of weather, the Winter Moth (yep, you can tell the person who named this moth was really thinking creatively at the time), and I was lucky enough to find one of these tough guys in the porch the other night...
A Shy Song Thrush...
Striking Scandinavian Surprise...
Schools was closed yesterday, and again today but the snow has finally stopped falling. However, this hadn't stopped the number of thrushes feeding in the garden from increasing, and Redwing numbers have reached an all time high of 25.
The harsh weather also brought in yet another Scandinavian speciality yesterday, the beautiful Fieldfare, one of my personal favourite birds, so you can image my delight when one bird suddenly flew down onto the fence perch I had the camera focused on...
Throughout yesterday and today SE England has had its fair share of snowfall, and our garden is no exception. I wasn't about to go photographing in this weather as I had no water/snowproofing skin for the equipment, but instead chose to, after the snowball fights of course, take some shots of the garden birds out of my window...
